Images depict al-Qaida torture techniques

The Pentagon has released graphic images that reportedly were obtained by U.S. military personnel in a raid on an Iraqi safe house, showing prescribed methods of torture for victims, including dragging a victim behind a vehicle and amputating limbs with a meat cleaver.

The images [warning, they are graphic] have appeared on the Smoking Gun website and others, and participants in a chat forum at Jihad Watch simply noted that the treatments depicted, from using a blowtorch on human skin to extracting an eye with a sharp tool, make it clear the U.S. use of any coercive methods on inmates isn’t even in the same league.

“The pictures … are worth … 100,000 words in knowing the creatures behind the events,” wrote Lame Cherry. “This … is what real torture looks like and not what the MSM was trying to portray in people standing in a cell naked being humiliated as ‘torture.'”

A depiction of dragging someone behind a vehicle

Reports say the images, which include a depiction of a bound man in a chair with his head in a vise, were discovered during a recent raid on an al-Qaida safe house in Iraq.

The soldiers, along with the images, also found an assortment of various instruments of torture, ranging from meat cleavers and whips to wire cutters.

The images were just declassified by the Department of Defense, reports said, and also include a photograph of the Baghdad safe house described as a “torture chamber” used by al-Qaida.

During the raid, reportedly on April 24, U.S. soldiers also found a man suspended from the ceiling by a chain and were able to release him. Military reports said he was abducted from his job and had been beaten daily by his captors.

Coalition forces also freed another five Iraqis who were found just a few days ago in a padlocked room in Karmah, and photographs of some of their injuries also were released.

Torture injuries to a man’s back

“All of us can be fairly certain that whatever torture used by the United States government is likely to be mild (if there is any used at all), at least in comparison with anything al-Qaida is likely to come up with,” Pythagoras added on the Jihad Watch website.

Jihad Watch is a project of the David Horowitz Freedom Center and is run by Spencer, the author of “The Truth About Muhammad” and “The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades).”

His articles on Islam and other topics have appeared in the “New York Post,” the “Washington Times,” the “Dallas Morning News,” Canada’s “National Post,” “Middle East Quarterly,” “WorldNetDaily,” and others.

Tools of torture hanging on a wall

He’s also led seminars on Islam and jihad for United States Central Command, United States Army Command and General Staff College, a Department of Homeland Security task force, and branches of the Joint Terrorism Task Force.

“I wonder if the Left is going to protest this, or if Amnesty International will visit the al-Qaida headquarters in Pakistan and request an explanation,” added Ameriki on the Jidah Watch blog.

The images graphically show the technique for blowtorching a victim, how to suspend a victim from the ceiling with a rope while having him wired for electrocution, how to suspend a victim by his wrists bent backwards over the top of a door, and how to use rods to beat a victim’s feet.

Using a heated clothes iron on unprotected skin and suspending a victim from the ceiling for a whipping also are portrayed.